


we can shake it up a little, we can kick it up a notch

by Vintar



Category: Fallout 4
Genre: Drunk Sex, F/F, Recreational Drug Use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 00:13:09
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,198
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6098516
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vintar/pseuds/Vintar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>If you want to have a night out on the town, there's no better place than Goodneighbor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we can shake it up a little, we can kick it up a notch

KL-E-0's last customer for the day turns out to be a man who doesn't know when to stop pushing his luck. KL-E-0 shoots him in the gut, so he can suffer, then she shoots him in the head, because, really, she doesn't have all day.

After a suitably cautious interval, Daisy's head appears around the edge of the wall separating their stores. "Now, lemme guess... tried to shortchange you?"

He'd, in fact, been rather rude about her being a her in the first place. "Mmm," KL-E-0 lies.

"Terrible," Daisy clucks, looking down at the still-cooling corpse sprawled across the cobblestones. "What has this world come to? Didn't their mamas ever teach them manners? Hey, mind if I take his boots?"

Until some bright spark creates a boot-based bomb, KL-E-0 really has no need. When she shakes her head, Daisy efficiently kicks the body over and places one foot up against its soles, eyeing the fit. It's apparently a good match, and she strips them off, planting her feet between the body's shoulderblades to tie her new laces.

She hitches a thumb at the mess. "You want me to find someone to clean this up?"

"Don't bother yourself. A girl like me knows how to get rid of a body."

Hancock had once tried to teach KL-E-0 how to tell if someone was lying, back when he was down and out and running on nothing but cheap cons and amphetamines. There was something about some complicated configuration of eyes and mouths and all the soft little surfaces between them. It didn't really stick, but KL-E-0 thinks that Daisy's smile is genuine enough. She's been looking at it a lot, lately. She's thinking of changing her contingency plan, calculating a way to kill Daisy without having to see it.

Laces tied, Daisy straightens up, shoulders square. She wiggles one foot out in front of herself, then the other. "Pretty sharp, huh?"

The boots are red and black. KL-E-0 may not have a particularly developed taste for fashion, but she appreciates warning colors when she sees them. "You're dressed to kill, baby."

When it comes to reading each other's expressions, Daisy has to be even more at a disadvantage than KL-E-0 is, but she doesn't miss a beat. She crooks an arm, and cocks the space where an eyebrow would have been. "Fancy taking them out on the town?"

KL-E-0 closes her claw around the body's skinny ankles, and lifts it up like it weighs nothing at all. In light of the tons that she's rated to haul, it more or less doesn't. "Give me a moment to powder my nose and disintegrate a corpse."

"I'll close up shop." There's a crinkle at the corner of Daisy's eyes, but then again, they were pretty crinkly to begin with. KL-E-0's going to need to see more. 

 

KL-E-0's not a stranger to the Rail, but usually her visits are limited to appreciating Magnolia and swapping small talk with the regulars. Most of the appealing features of the bar-- drinking far too much of something inadvisable and ending up on your knees in the restrooms, catching the eye of someone inadvisable and ending up on your knees in the restrooms-- aren't exactly on the menu for her.

But, then again, Goodneighbor is Goodneighbor. Charlie watches with one eye as one of the Den-heads sells her a modified chip. Something new that's built for synths, he swears. A good time dot exe.

"A bit of that'll mess you up right good," Charlie says.

"Is that a promise or a warning?"

He shrugs in the expansive way that only someone with three arms can shrug. "From what I've seen? Both, really. If you're going to burn anything down, do it outside, yeah?"

Daisy's a few beers and a hit of Jet down, starting to go soft and slow around the edges. "Hey, it's your funeral." She winks, leans one skinny shoulder up against KL-E-0's round metal one. The only way KL-E-0 can tell is by watching it in the reflection of the bottles on the shelf, the gesture broadcast in a dozen multicolored ways. "Don't worry, I've got your back."

There's a difference between being incautious and just being stupid, so KL-E-0 closes one claw around Daisy's wrist and tugs her into the women's restroom. Daisy laughs low and throaty and follows her, then when they have some privacy she gets up on the tiptoes of her brand new second-hand boots with a screwdriver and lets KL-E-0 talk her through temporarily deactivating her onboard weaponry. KL-E-0 watches in the cracked glass of the mirror as Daisy unscrews a panel and goes wrist-deep in the back of KL-E-0's head. Daisy's eyes are lidded but her hands are still steady. She'd spent years running her own caravans, she'd told KL-E-0 once, handling all kinds of repairs, anything and everything that needed doing. She slots the chip home with a click.

"You're good with your hands, baby."

In the dingy light it's hard to catch when Daisy rolls her eyes, the movement of her eyelids giving it away more than her muddy sclera. "It's been, what, two seconds? Ha, who would have thought you were such a lightweight. _Please_ tell me that I'm not going to have to carry you back home."

If anything, the woman who walks into the bathroom seems more suspicious of the two of them snickering together than if they'd been doing anything more blatant. KL-E-0 gasps as best she can, acting the maiden caught in flagrante, and Daisy dissolves into wracking laughter, wheezing for breath and leaning on KL-E-0's arm. Her voice is too low and rough for giggles, but it's good. It's familiar, a noise KL-E-0 hears across the division between their stores, and sometimes through the holes in their shared bedroom wall.

Back at the bar, the bottles are brighter, their tiny reflected broadcasts eating up KL-E-0's focus, magnifying and magnifying and magnifying. Someone climbs on the bar and declares that they're going to fight the Institute, someone throws something, someone punches someone else. KL-E-0 leans her shoulder against Daisy's, watching in rum and whisky tones with care to see if it's too heavy, too rough, too much. Daisy just leans back, rests one pitted cheek against the curve of KL-E-0's shoulder plate.

The bar is in full Goodneighbor swing, but KL-E-0's auditory processes are military grade, despite everything being a little pleasantly askew. From down and to the side, under the chatter and the music, she can catch Daisy saying "Heh. Didn't expect you'd be so warm." 

Apparently KL-E-0 isn't the only one with well-designed hearing. "Remember what I said about starting fires," Charlie grouses, which sets Daisy off again, knocking a fist against the beer-sticky bar with each bark of laughter.

"Outside," KL-E-0 muses, and then, decides: "Let's blow this joint, honey."

The light of the town are lighter than usual, and if KL-E-0 didn't know her weight for a precise fact, engraved in neat caps on the of inside her chassis hatch, she'd think that she was lighter than usual, too. They hit up the Rexford, where Daisy does a neat line of something Fred's been working on, then a Triggerman shindig, where they ask KL-E-0 for stories and clap her on the back hard enough to raise tinny echoes, then a fire in a drum with drifters from out west, selling fat molerat chops spitting with grease. It's cold out, apparently, and Daisy tucks herself up against KL-E-0's side like a lizard on a rock.

In an alleyway, she puts her arms around KL-E-0's waist and leans in. "I don't really know what to do, here," Daisy says, face twisted up in concentration, and KL-E-0 loops one arm around her back, pressing her in close. She makes a thrilling little noise at the movement, pressing in closer to KL-E-0's chassis, arching up under the crook of her arm.

"Me either." She's thought about it, of course. She'd been created with knowledge of how hard to hit humans, how much force is needed to snap bones and crack skulls. The unknown flip-side of her equations, of tender touches and gentle handling, is thrilling in its uncertainty. "Surprise me, baby."

In the dim light, Daisy's eyes are nothing but black. Still, they look _hungry_. She straddles KL-E-0's thigh and presses her mouth to her faceplate, hands tight on her shoulders and teeth scraping against the metal.

When Daisy pulls away, her thin lips twist up to the side in a wry smile. "Come back to my place," she says. "No, wait. Your place is a few feet closer, let's go back to yours. The whole walking thing ain't working out so well for me right now."

"Isn't that a little demanding?"

"If you want to kick me out in the morning, just roll me through one of the holes. One of the bigger ones, please. I'm not as flexible as I used to be."

The art of this is new to her, but no-one spends time in Goodneighbor without hearing their fair share of cat-calls and dirty-talk. "I'm sure we can work on that," KL-E-0 purrs as best she can, and is delighted by the grin it sparks.

"Okay, but if I roll over and start snoring before you get yours, promise you won't kill me."

"Hmm. Would you believe me if I said yes?"

"Nah." Daisy smiles. She slides a hand into one of KL-E-0's claws, tugging her forward. Her weight shouldn't be enough to budge KL-E-0 an inch, but she finds herself leaning into it, letting Daisy lead her. "Let's hit the road."

 

When the timer in the chip ticks down and turns off, KL-E-0 wakes up. It's not a sensation she's used to. Powering on and off is clean and distinct, being and then being again, with only her internal clock to tell her of how long she spent not-being.

This isn't clean. It is _not_ distinct. Her systems come on sluggishly, filecheck subroutines flickering on to assess the damage.

She's slumped on the floor in her room, leaning against the wall. Incorrect: not her room. Daisy's room. They'd been in her room, though, at some stage. She has memory of some of the night: Daisy, touching herself, then being touched, those hungry dark eyes on her... then they'd gone-- somewhere. To get something. Her memory is patchy, and by the look of the estimated time to completion on those maintenance subroutines, it's going to be a while before she can remember what happened. She's going to have to find someone else who knows.

Luckily, the most likely suspect isn't too hard to find. Daisy is sprawled out, head pillowed against one arm, somehow looking implausibly comfortable. Despite months of hearing her snores through the wall, it's the first time KL-E-0's actually seen her asleep. It changes her face, somehow. She looks strangely fragile. It doesn't help that she's half-undressed, her untucked shirt barely covering herself and her bare legs draped over KL-E-0's own. 

The glare of KL-E-0's optic is enough to wake her. Daisy blinks and frowns her way awake, and from the misery on her face, her awakening is similar to KL-E-0's. 

KL-E-0 is expecting a greeting, but when Daisy looks up, her expression freezes. She stares at KL-E-0 with a slow dawning horror, then rolls her face downwards and wheezes until she's crying. 

Eventually, when KL-E-0's approximately 75% of the way through planning how to destroy the entire town in one fell swoop, she holds up a hand placatingly. "I'm not laughing at you, I swear-- well, kind of? Hang on, let me-- urgh, gravity, shit-- let me show you. Jesus. Two hundred and change, and I'm still dumb enough to get this hungover."

She stumbles to her feet, then stumbles around her room until she finds something, then stumbles back. From the way she's squinting and the hunch to her shoulders, it looks like it's going to be an excellent day for stumbling. 

Slowly, carefully, she shows KL-E-0 the mirror in her hands, then angles it up at KL-E-0's face.

KL-E-0's unexpectedly unfamiliar face.

KL-E-0's face, which has now been painted in broad strokes of shiny black, with a bright red stripe down the center.

"I think I gave you a makeover," Daisy says in what sounds like a death-rattle, eyes glassy.

KL-E-0 turns her head, then twists her torso, trying to see it all in the tiny cloudy mirror. It's messy. It's crude. It's the brightest of bright clear warning colors, matching blood and burning fire and Daisy's boots. There's smudged fingerprints on the back of one claw, four small fingertips and one thumb.

"Baby," she says, intense. "I _love_ it."

 

Her first customer of the day tells her he's looking for his missing brother, then makes fun of her paint job. She shoots him in the gut, so he can suffer, then shoots him in the head because his screaming is drowning out the sound of Daisy singing tunelessly with the radio as she works. 

She's definitely going to have to change that contingency plan. But in the meantime, she lowers her volume down to minimum, and begins to hum along.


End file.
